Pierre Queinnec wrote:

Here are two mails T. Valkonen sent respectively to FreeBSD Ports [1] and pkgsrc [2], warning them of a license violation on his software, ion3 (x11/ion3).

I'll be committing a removal of the port in 5 days if nobody wants to step up and take ownership from me. Then again, I'm not sure this serves the "community" best interest to keep it in the ports. Apologies to the ion3 users that will be forced to compile it themselves. I suggest you keep the Portfile in a private repository should you know how to do this, so you can still benefit from MacPorts build and upgrade cycles.

For me this sounds like a removal request... What is the problem with a version more than 28 days old? In my personal opinion ion3 with this license addition does not qualify as free software any more. Definitely remove it. Rainer

On Dec 13, 2007, at 16:13, paul beard wrote:

On 12/13/07, Rainer Müller wrote:

...

For me this sounds like a removal request... What is the problem with a version more than 28 days old? In my personal opinion ion3 with this license addition does not qualify as free software any more. Definitely remove it.

...

Wow, from that thread, I would have to agree. for those not inclined to read through the flamethread, FreeBSD is in a ports freeze, where updates and changes are verboten, unless they are to fix an issue like a segfault or the like: these often last a month, and that would span the 28 days.

Never heard of ion3 before today, and I guess I won't miss it.

Yeah, that's a pretty fantastic thread on the FreeBSD list there. The software has been removed from FreeBSD and will not be added back in: http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ports/2007-December/ 045576.html MacPorts should probably remove it too, though I'd suggest leaving the portfile with a message in it that the software is not available through MacPorts and must be installed by hand, explaining why. Just to prevent someone from inadvertently adding it back in later. The message could perhaps also indicate other alternatives that are still available through MacPorts, if we thought that was appropriate. The port revision should be incremented, and users should see the message upon upgrading. I would want to ensure that any existing users of the port are made aware that it is gone; otherwise they would retain the old version forever, which the software author surely does not want.

On Dec 14, 2007, at 10:26 AM, Markus Weissmann wrote:

Hi Pierre,

thanks for bringing this up here: Mr. Valkonen's license is absolutely unbearable. As an alternative: Perhaps you can bring the port back to the last sane licensed version - don't know if this is useful and/or possible. Either that or remove it please.

Regards,

-Markus

I say we remove it, the author's request of reviewing every patch that is applied to his software and that the distributed version is no longer than 28 days old (qualms that were both raised by FreeBSD ports maintainers) are just not sustainable without placing considerable stress on our maintainers and the project as a whole... and this whole thing about open source is supposed to be about volunteering and cooperating, not *demanding*. Not just my thoughts, but actually my vote as PortMgr. Regards,... -jmpp

Vincent Lefevre wrote:

Or change the name of the software. These restrictions apply only in this case:

[quoted from the LICENSE file] If the name Ion(tm) or other names that can be associated with the Ion project are used to distribute this software, then: [/quoted]

Seems like Debian did this and renamed ion3 to ParticleMan. At least I found this blog entry [1] about it and the packages are already in some trees. As an alternative of removing it, maybe we can just grab the sources from them and keep it with another name? Rainer [1] http://womble.decadent.org.uk/blog/introducing-particleman.html

Citando Rainer Müller :

Vincent Lefevre wrote:

...

Or change the name of the software. These restrictions apply only in this case:

[quoted from the LICENSE file] If the name Ion(tm) or other names that can be associated with the Ion project are used to distribute this software, then: [/quoted]

Seems like Debian did this and renamed ion3 to ParticleMan. At least I found this blog entry [1] about it and the packages are already in some trees. As an alternative of removing it, maybe we can just grab the sources from them and keep it with another name?

Rainer

[1] http://womble.decadent.org.uk/blog/introducing-particleman.html

Ha, particleman, that's it! Thank you for saying that name. I remember having seen this blog post but later could not find the name back. However, it is not yet in debian, there is only an "intent to package". That's the reason why I decided to use awesome which is quite similar to wmii but with less luggage (and wmii's version in macports is no longer supported by the developper), and made a port for it. It would be great if ParticleMan could make its way in macports sooner or later. Emmanuel